A popular Australian TV comedy show called 'Hey Hey, it's Saturday' made headlines recently when it aired a segment featuring a group of people from various ethnic backgrounds tarted up in Minstrel-esque black face paint impersonating the Jackson Five. It prompted columnists, TV and radio show hosts to posture up and begin a finger-wagging national self-analysis: 'Is Australia a racist country?'. It was as ridiculous as it was embarrassing. A individual, a legal stipulation or on occasion an organisation can be racist but a county – a sovereign territory with a nation and government – obviously can't collectively be racist any more than a field or a car park can be an open-minded liberal. Nonetheless, the national conversation went back and forth for a few days generating plenty of heat but very little by way of light.
On one side were the poor damaged souls who out of that nasty, post-colonial inferiority complex we so often see in Ireland, felt the need to write their country and nation off as collection of pillowcase-wearing, cross-burning Nazis. For this crowd, the worst of it wasn't even that the whole country was racist – the really crucial point was that the rest of the world supposedly thought Australia was racist. Copies of English newspapers which mentioned the row in a tiny article on page eight were brandished around studios as if they were proof of the country's failure in the eyes of the world – and in the eyes of the English, in particular.
Standing against the moral outrage were those who thought the segment was sort of funny. They reckoned it should be written off as something done in an attempt to make people laugh rather than to cause offence. It was comedy and cultural sensitivities be damned. Both went into the argument with their views deeply entrenched and, as tends to be the case in debates, came away without having budged an inch; bar maybe radicalising slightly.
It seemed very much like a storm in a tea cup to me. The segment wasn't funny, but then the programme itself is dire so I wouldn't have expected anything else. Of course, the act of dressing up and doing a ham-fisted impersonation of a Jackson Five member isn't racist in-and-of-itself – UK show 'Bo Selecta' regularly featured comedian Leigh Francis ripping off Michael Jackson but to my knowledge he remained free of accusations of racism. This reveals the crux of the issue; the act of putting dark paint on your face to appear black.
So is this racist? When the Minstrels did it it was of course racist because they set out to ridicule black people in general. But was this the intention of our rubbish Australian comedians? I don't think it was. Demonstrating cultural insensitivity out of a lack of knowledge and understanding of how the things you do will come across to others isn't racism – that's just being a bit of an idiot. It's ignorance – a different kettle of fish to the deliberate malice which denotes real racism.
I've heard the argument that someone can inadvertently do something bigoted or racist without there being any intent behind it, but I'm not sure I agree with this. For example, every now and again a word that was common, acceptable parlance is suddenly stricken from the record when somebody somewhere decides that from now on it's going to carry negative connotations. 'Person living with a disability' is the the acceptable, politically correct term at the moment and 'disabled person' is for cavemen. If you're not aware of this change and you use the later, then there are people out there who will take this to mean that you are a bigot. And give it 10 years – it will change again and those who use 'person living with a disability' on the Tuesday after the Monday it gets proscribed will too be branded.
To me, a word is a collection of inanimate sounds we use to portray to our audience a particular meaning. It's the intent – the message the bigot is seeking to project that is the issue, not the words themselves. Without the meaning the speaker chooses to attach they are just noises – the sound of a car going past or light switch being flicked.
I think the same goes for peoples' actions. We all do stupid things from time-to-time and occasionally put our foot in it but if there was no intention to hurt or offend, we shouldn't be condemned for it.
The_Walrus
Pro 
I'm not convinced that the Black and White Minstrels intended to ridicule anyone. I think they set out to do entertaining singing and dancing routines, and were incredibly tactless in imitating the Al Jolson makeup. (And wasn't Jolson Jewish? There could be a whole different kettle of worms there, to mix metaphors a little.)
If the Black and White Minstrel Show had been a radio programme, could it have been racist? I have no idea, but I think you are right that Australia shouldn't be beating itself up about 'Hey Hey, it's Saturday', except insofar as it looks to be crap TV. Some people like that sort of thing, I believe, but maybe somebody should have had second thoughts at the TV station... they could have easily made less offensive crap!